And, for whatever reason that utterly baffles me, the driver files do not exist on the included CD. Instead, they exist in floppy disk image files on the CD, which first must be written to a floppy disk, from which you then copy the files. Unfortunately, every floppy disk we have is corrupt due to age. So I need a way to extract the files from that image.

Please note that the reason we don't just replace the server entirely (which is definitely due) is because that is not in the budget right now.

EDIT: the disk image is in UFS format apparently. Windows programs will not work!

What OSes are you using? I assume Windows.
–
J. PolferJul 10 '09 at 17:59

3

l0c0b0x: As in WTF would anyone do such a painfully boneheaded thing as force sysadmins to create floppies from an image when you can just... ah, put the files on the CDROM? Even if I had floppies that worked, it would still be painfully boneheaded. Sheepsimulator: The server is FreeBSD 4.9, I have a Ubuntu workstation, and access to windows workstations in the office.
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ErnieJul 10 '09 at 18:29

@Ernie - because maybe images come from a time when they didn't have cdrom's ? Images of some installation discs which required for everything to be just like on the discs, including disc name and so on.
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ldigasJul 10 '09 at 22:36

That almost works. I can mount the image, but then when I try to read from it I get the error "Input/output error"
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ErnieJul 10 '09 at 18:25

Technically speaking, this appears to be the right solution. But the disk image is unreadable due to an input/output error. This may also be the reason why none of our floppies worked as well. I think the driver developer is simply out to lunch, not only for the requirement that the floppy be imaged, but because the floppy image on their website is also not working. FYI: Avoid Highpoint 1640 RAID controllers.
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ErnieJul 10 '09 at 20:32

Try using Virtual Floppy Drive to virtually mount the floppy image. Then you should be able to access it.

EDIT: Considering the UFS file, you have the capabilities to do this in a linux/unix environment using loop devices. I found some instructions on this in the BOCHS user manual and here is the losetup man page for Unix. Good luck, and I hope that helps.

+1 - I use this to get files out of disk images, or with obstinate installers that demand to write BIOS updates, etc, to a floppy disk. This ought to let you get those files out. You beat me... I posted that about 30 seconds after you... >smile<
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Evan AndersonJul 10 '09 at 17:41

I would try UFS Explorer in Windows, especially if it is a UFS image. Even if it isn't free to do what you need, I would think that for the meager payment to the developers your work will be much faster.